tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75595237636204059412018-03-06T01:24:06.020-08:00Pardon My PunditryHoward Owennoreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-63702130138070591432014-09-25T08:36:00.000-07:002014-09-25T08:39:30.739-07:00Turn A Gain<div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Streaming clouds, ad impressions, obsessions <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Television waving banners <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">In the face of ancient hatred<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Excavated restated to fire desire<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Inspire madness in the muscle <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Nothing new said the prophet every reason has a season<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">To everything<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">There is a season<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">To everything<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">There is a season<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">And a time.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Your eyes are the stock in trade <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">You’re made by trends, your friends <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Your gut desire, you wire <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Bitter children with hate, they wait <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">To make their killing <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Willing madness in the muscle <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Bitter fingers on the triggers <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">To everything<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">There is a season<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">To everything<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">There is a season<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">And a time<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Nothing new said the prophet every reason has a season<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Turn again.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Copyright 2014 by Howard Owen<o:p></o:p></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> 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gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <!--EndFragment--><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-71163318139457515882014-01-11T14:46:00.001-08:002014-01-11T15:36:21.595-08:00Video Ads<div class="p1"><span class="s1">An update to the mobile Facebook app on Android dropped a little bomb on me the other day. It told me they were about to push video ads that would play without my permission. There was a "learn more" link that I clicked through to learn that they would download these ads over my mobile data connection unless I twiddled the option in my preferences. I learned that despite expressing that preference, Facebook would download ads while I was on WiFi and play them back later while I was mobile. After twiddling the option, they asked for my opinion. I left feedback to the effect that evoking impotent rage among subscribers was not good business. (There's a possible work-around to getting ads shoved down your throat. See below.)</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">I'm old school. I first saw the Internet in 1986, just before Al Gore invented it by helping to pass the legislation that created NSFNET. When I first saw the WWW in the summer of 1993, I knew it would change everything. The fact it bridged all the other information protocols and services into a simple, uniform interface meant that ordinary users wouldn't have to telnet to an Archie server to search for a file accessible only by FTP. Gopher was obsolete. UUCP would be shortly.&nbsp; After playing with xmosaic a bit, I realized that the new protocols were far more powerful than the old ones I was used to. Moreover, the tools to create pages in the new medium were in principle available to anyone.&nbsp; I dreamed of a future in which democracy would reign in a flattened hierarchy that allowed anyone to produce information as well as consume it.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">I got disabused of many of my idealistic notions over the coming years. The idea that the Web would change everything was true beyond my wildest imaginings, but I didn't see all that commercialism coming.&nbsp; In the face of the cold light of reality, I learned to accept advertising as a mechanism for funding a lot of the utility and content on the Web. Even so, I hated a the way that companies tried to push ads in front of the content. When Google came along, I was primed to love their less intrusive approach to advertising. (I also loved it that they seemed to share a lot of my idealism about the Web.)&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Despite the disillusionments, I retain my general optimism down to the present day But it’s&nbsp; tempered by 28 years of experience of the web and of life in general. Nonetheless, my attitudes and prejudices toward the Internet are inescapably wound up with my early dreams of a golden peer to peer nirvana, and some of my prejudices have refused to yield. I still hate having ads or content shoved down my throat. Videos that play without my permission still annoy the hell out of me. I stopped watching television because of the incessant bombardment by manipulative ads. If someone wants me to sit through the same sort of experience on my desktop or my phone, I can always close the window. I have choice, dammit! My policy is to stop using a service or resource that tries this sort of thing. Formally, the only exception to this rule is when I seriously can't avoid dealing with the product or service. In reality, I keep using sites I like a lot, albeit with a measure of disgruntlement. I'm about to find out if Facebook qualifies under that exception.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">I don't idly threaten to stop using Facebook, I know how deeply addicted I am to the service. But I log off the minute I see a video ad on the desktop. I'm cheating because so far, Facebook on my phone hasn't shown me any ads, so I can stay in touch despite my microscopic protest on the desktop. (This may work because I never connect to WiFi with my Nexus 5, or maybe they listened to my feedback.) So I haven't cut the bonds that tie me to Facebook, but I've loosened them a little. I'm spending a little more time on services I used to frequent quite a lot. Slashdot and Ars Technica are pretty fun to browse. I'm also using Google+ a bit more.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Aggregate me, spy on me, sell my eyeballs to the highest bidder, I'll tolerate all of that. Shove video ads down my throat and I'll revolt. Wow, is all that other stuff really acceptable too?</span></div>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-28456867691792917492013-10-30T22:48:00.000-07:002013-10-30T22:51:37.615-07:00<div class="p1"><span class="s1">A friend asked me where I was going in life. I couldn’t come up with an answer on the spot, and that bugged me. &nbsp;I'll attempt to answer that question briefly and succinctly. This will necessarily involve where I’ve been and what happened.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">I was obsessed with myself and my work. I was isolated by choice. I was oblivious to others, regretful of the past and neglectful of my health. These choices eventually led me to the gates of insanity and death. I was committed on a 5150 for suicidal depression. 2 weeks later I had a major heart attack. I was down and stayed there for 3 years. Then my fear of death, which was all I could think of, was relieved by a power greater than myself.&nbsp; I turned the corner spiritually, emotionally and physically. I feel I’m back on a spiritual path.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">So I’m open to God’s will. Where do I feel that is leading me? I seem to attract people with addictions and mental health problems. My experience allows me to be helpful. I get huge satisfaction from this&nbsp; I’m being taught to get out of my own way. I’ve been exploring my creative side, with music and visual design. What’s going on here? All those enthusiasms seem to add up to carrying a message. I think I have something to say, and I’m being given the opportunity to say it.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">What do I have to say?&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">Today matters. The past and future are imaginary. Forgiveness is freedom. Spiritual growth is about spiritual experience. Words get you part way there, but words are not the experience. Meditation involves silencing the articulate mind. &nbsp; Logic and analysis, separation and ego must be stilled in order to experience wholeness and connection. That consciousness lives in me. God is in me, and in everything else.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><br /><div class="p1"><span class="s1">But I struggle with faith. I get pissed off at God and slam the door of consciousness shut. When I do that I’m in grave danger. Anger at God will drive me right into a pit of despair and self-pity.&nbsp;</span>If I revel in logical/philosophical objections to God, that's where I'll go.&nbsp;That will kill me quick. This is not a theoretical proposition. I have to find my way back as soon as possible. So I have a practical argument in favor of God consciousness. I can sometimes help people who, like me, have intellectual resistance to that sort of thing.</div><div class="p1"><br /></div>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-90337888803804841632013-10-29T08:35:00.001-07:002013-10-30T22:50:15.528-07:00Semi-sometimes Journaling <div class="p1"><span class="s1">Keeping a journal has never been something that I’ve ever done successfully over the long haul. I have ideas about why that is but none of them fully satisfy me. It’s true I’m lazy, and it’s true that I have trouble regulating my time. Be that as it may I’m more motivated this time around to write on a daily basis. I don’t want to the track minutiae of my daily routine or the goings-on of my friends, I have Facebook for that. Here I’d like to leave thoughts that pass through my mind and disappear. Sometimes I think some pretty interesting thoughts. (Interesting to me at any rate.) I’d like to hold onto them a little longer than just&nbsp; until my short-term memory gets wiped.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">It’s not just a matter of recording my thoughts directly. I want to find a way to articulate the ideas beyond merely putting them down on paper.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">I’m thinking about discipline. My perception of myself is that I don’t have any. Like many of the unexamined opinions I hold about myself, this judgement is black or white. I either have discipline or I don’t. That’s nonsense. I do have discipline in a lot of things. I’m a disciplined thinker when I want to be. I adhere to schedules that I almost entirely set for myself. In other matters I am not so rigorous. I have little discipline when it comes to my physical surroundings. I live in my head a lot, and I use this as a way to avoid unpleasant things. Using my license not to be coherent in this narrative, I’m going to shift focus over to that live in my head thing. This is, of course, very undisciplined.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">I am a thinker. I spent a lot of time in my thoughts. There are various reasons for this. One reason is that I have an active and powerful mind. I believe I was born with that, and that it was nurtured by my parents. Another reason is that an unpleasant childhood prompted me to live in fantasy. Let’s try that again. I have always lived in fantasy. I’ve always had a very powerful imagination. I have often been able to think of things that are more interesting more engaging more pleasant and just happier than what is happening to me right now. These abilities are not good or bad. I can use them to create worlds that are interesting to others as well as myself. I can make models of reality when I’m trying to solve a problem.&nbsp; I can also run away into my fantasies, as I did with Second Life, and World of Warcraft.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p1"><span class="s1">These are all, good and bad, examples of very obvious, all-inclusive forms of fantasy. My imagination works on a smaller scale as well. I look into the future to decide where my next foot will fall and how to get from appointment A to appointment B. But I also take present upsets and injuries into the future, projecting them into a model in my mind. There I direct puppet show wherein a person who has injured me, say, shows why they are such an asshole and why I was right all along.&nbsp;</span></div><br /><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-77022184144142853862013-07-02T11:03:00.000-07:002013-10-31T00:03:10.038-07:00Science of Consciousness<br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;">a·nal·y·sis /əˈnaləsis/</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;">Noun</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;">1. Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something, typically as a basis for discussion or interpretation.</span><br /><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;">2. The process of separating something into its constituent elements.<br /><br />My analytic mind takes the universe between my ears apart, dividing ideas into ever simpler constituents in an attempt to understand the whole. This is the scientific approach to consciousness. I notice that my awareness consists of my sensoria, my drives, my emotions and my intellect. From these elements emerge my holistic experience.<br /><br />ho·lis·tic<br />/hōˈlistik/<br /><br />Adjective<br />1. Characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.<br /><br />At the holistic level, I start to perceive something that none of my categories seem to contain. I hear echoes of Spirit bridging all the categories and binding reality together into an awesome whole. This is the physical-&gt;mental-&gt;spiritual hierarchy that seems so obvious and correct to my analytical mind.<br /><br />But what if it’s the other way around? What if Spirit is the primary reality, and the parts are merely ramifications of that Whole? Perhaps I can approach an awesome Unity. Maybe I can feel holy fear in the presence of God.<br /><br />If I stop trying to divide my reality into pieces. I can approach this Experience. But I can’t get there through description. Language is the tool of my analytical mind. My descriptions of God refer to aspects of his Consciousness and cannot convey His actual presence.<br /><br />The dao that can be told<br />is not the eternal Dao<br />The name that can be named<br />is not the eternal Name.<br /><br />Lao Tzu - Dao De Jing<br /><br />I must allow the unnamable God to seize me. I must abandon myself to the fearful hurricane of Spirit in order to experience peace.</span>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-32876980408595220502013-07-02T11:01:00.000-07:002013-07-02T11:01:24.753-07:00Who am I to Doubt the Power of God?<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;">If I’ve undergone the radical shift of step three, then I know that my ideas are the only thing standing between God’s will and its mental and physical manifestation in my life.&nbsp;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;">My doubt is my ego defending its sovereignty. The ego centered fear I feel when I contemplate letting go of my character defects, of making my amends, of turning over my will and life right now is actually the awareness of God’s power. The fear is a blessing that draws my attention to the next step in my spiritual growth. Here is where I must surrender to move forward.</span>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-20723434046477178602013-07-02T10:59:00.000-07:002013-07-02T10:59:54.409-07:00Radical Shift<br /><h2><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;">Radical Shift</span></h2><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;">Listening to Ron on step 10 got me thinking. Steps one, two and three result in a radical shift of perspective from an ego centered universe to a God centered universe. In a sense, that’s the whole deal. The rest of the steps are a concrete plan to manifest the consequences of that shift in my life. Ron talked about the shift in radical terms. Not only do I change my view of where my problem lies - within myself and not in other people, places and things - but my ideas about the whole order of the universe radically change. The obvious hierarchy of physical-&gt;mental-&gt; spiritual is inverted. Now I see God, as I understand God, as the primary reality. From this Spirit arises mentality, Then my ideas create the world I inhabit.&nbsp;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.166666030883789px;">I’ve heard this message over and over throughout my life, but somehow I made a breakthrough in understanding it this weekend. Thanks Ron and Primetime!</span>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-90772190473633710832010-12-09T12:42:00.000-08:002010-12-10T17:02:54.455-08:00With Friends Like Anonymous..A group calling itself "Anonymous" has claimed responsibility for a series of recent attacks on sites they think are cooperating in the attempt to bring down Wikileaks. I think these actions are ill advised to be charitable, and distract from the real issues in the debate surrounding Wikileaks.<br /><br />The tactic employed by Anonymous and others is called "Distributed Denial Of Service" (DDOS). It involves hijacking hundreds or thousands of computers and using them to overwhelm an Internet site by bombarding it with traffic. There are technical means that can overcome them, but I think the interesting thing about such attacks is how they cut squarely against the kind of transparency Wikileaks says it aims for. DDOS attacks are the moral equivalent of shouting down an opponent at a town meeting, except the effect is global, not local. The argument that they are responding to similar tactics by the friends of the US Government is the same one that has been used to justify mass slaughter throughout human history. That argument is as morally bankrupt as the actions it seeks to justify. I would be perfectly happy to hear that the government had busted one or two of these slime mold samples.<br /><br />However I'm under no illusions that would actually change anything. The nature of the Internet guarantees people with any motivation whatsoever will have the tools needed to get their message across. Although hacker gangs, criminal cartels and repressive governments all employ tools to stifle the free flow of information these are ineffective in view of the technology and politics of the Internet.<br /><br />At the technical level, the Internet more or less treats everyone's data in the same way. Traffic on the Internet comes tagged with technical service information, (e.g. web traffic versus video versus voice calls,) and where the traffic originated and where it is bound. What the network knows nothing about is the meaning of the information that flows through its infrastructure. You can "tap" the flow of data through a particular point, but there are other technical problems with that, beginning with the fact that a lot of the Web's traffic is protected by encryption.<br /><br />At the political level, pressure can be exerted against companies or individuals that might provide services to a site a government might object to. Apparently under pressure from the US Government, several US companies that were providing crucial services to to Wikileaks withdrew that support. Wikileaks was "off the air" for a couple of days, but then returned, having found providers for all the missing services. For now at least, they have adapted to the pressure applied to them, and continue to release the diplomatic documents in their possession on the installment plan.<br /><br />But even if it were possible to kick every prop out from under Wikileaks, the effort to surpress the organization's ability to continue publishing secrets would fail. Any website can be copied and made available elsewhere on the Internet. The process is called "mirroring." As of December 9, 2010, Wikileaks claims to have nearly 1,400 such mirrors operating. Recall that the infrastructure of the Internet doesn't know about content, so it will happily transfer any information from any site. The original information source may die, but the information itself lives on on myriad sites, each of which a prospective censor would have to take down in order to achieve its aims. Couple that with strong anonymity, meaning that mirrors can be operated by people whose identities remain protected, and it's game over for the party trying to surpress information on the Internet. These tactics have been used to overcome censorship imposed by repressive regimes, such as China. They are just as effective when used against the current effort to censor the web.<br /><br />The criminal tactics of Anonymous are despicable and deplorable, but trying to connect them to Wikileaks is either cynical propaganda or misinformed punditry. Against the background of technical and political realities of the Internet I just described, I believe that Wikileaks doesn't need criminal attacks like those we have seen in order to survive. Engaging in that sort of thing would do nothing but detract from Wikileaks achieving its aims, and if there is one thing that is clear in this situation, it's that Julian Assange puts those aims ahead of any other concern.Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-2392788842284690902010-05-23T10:46:00.000-07:002010-05-23T11:41:31.128-07:00Sarah Palin Defends Ron PaulI still can't believe that exposing a candidate's weaknesses can be successfully attacked as "gotcha politics." But <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/23/palin-rand-paul-learning-like/">here's Sarah Palin</a> trying to use the same old double-speak to defend Rand Paul. <br /><br /><blockquote>"One thing that we can learn in this lesson that I have learned and Rand Paul is learning now is don't assume that you can engage in a hypothetical discussion about constitutional impacts with a reporter or a media personality who has an agenda, who may be prejudiced before they even get into the interview in regards to what your answer may be -- and then the opportunity that they seize to get you."</blockquote><br />The main problem with this defense is that Sarah’s embarrassment arose from exposing her boneheaded ignorance and stupidity over and over and over on national TV. Katie Couric may have suspected that Sarah Palin was politically illiterate, but exposing that fact was a public service. A free press is supposed to do that sort of thing. On the other hand, Rand Paul has expressed a well thought out but wrong headed opinion. He has also been pounced on by the press for this, but once again, the media has made a judgment that Paul's philosophical opposition to one cornerstone of the 1964 civil rights act is newsworthy. How can you argue with that? At least Paul's opinion is not born of abyssal ignorance, parochial isolation and innate feeble mindedness.<br /><br /> Going only on his decision to cancel an appearance on Meet the Press, it seems possible Rand Paul might try to retreat from the national spotlight to preserve his political chances in KY without compromising his principles. Sarah Palin doesn’t have to do this, because she allows her principles to be carefully vetted, and modified as needed. She also has gotten better at the twin arts of prevarication and misdirection, and employs them freely at the rare unscripted events she attends.<br /><br />It’s not like she’s worse in this regard than many another politician on the national stage, but in her case, we’ve had a good look at the noodle head under the constructed political image. Rand Paul is not a noodle head. He’s an idealistic libertarian with a touching faith in private enterprise. Whether he will allow himself to be transformed into a nationally saleable product like Sarah Palin remains to be seen.Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-89771512868511577572010-04-14T09:25:00.000-07:002010-04-14T11:06:32.565-07:00Gaining GroundI've been gaining ground psychologically for the last two months. I had a severe panic attack about that long ago that seems to have shocked me out of my depression. I still suffer from obsessively negative thinking, but I now have the ability to short circuit these thoughts with cognitive techniques, and it has become less and less troublesome. As my mind has cleared, I've started seeing some obvious roadblocks that obsessive thinking leads me to put in my way.<br /><br />One aspect of this is obsessive perfectionism. For example, before 2009, I found it impossible to write songs. I could write tunes, and sometimes some verse, but I could never allow myself to compromise one for the other, and one or the other was never good enough. That changed in 2009, after my surgery. I think that the limitations that I had to deal with then made compromise essential in many areas of my life. One manifestation of this was that I was able to write a song. I wrote a little verse with a particular meter. I pulled an old tune out of a dusty inner bookshelf and tried to squeeze the two together. They didn't fit so well. So I modified the tune to match the new meter, but the words still didn't fit. So I tweaked the words a bit. Going back and forth I was successful in writing a complete song. And compromising on the meter, melody and syntax allowed me to hold on to what I really found important: the meaning of the whole ensemble. That was a minor triumph for me. But the general pattern of refusing to compromise on details to achieve of an overall goal still stops me from completing stuff I really want to do. Lately, my awareness of this problem has allowed me to avoid it several times. That feels good.<br /><br />A second way my obsessive thinking bites me is in the matter of details. A friend on Second Life is working in a start up company. Yesterday, he complained about being interrupted by some corporate trivia while he was 5000 levels deep in some complicated code. It reminded me of when I used to do that sort of thing. Systems design, engineering and coding all demand a huge amount of concentration, and the ability to track one or more chains of details down to great depth. In my case, obsessive tendencies really helped me do that kind of work. I can't do it so well anymore, but I still tend to chase stuff "down a rabbit hole." (Or a "rat hole," depending.) When I was working, I had colleagues that helped pull me back up to the surface when I was in danger of drowning in minutiae. I now find that heading for the depths in isolation is a really effective barrier to progress.<br /><br />Reducing the impact of just those two obsessive patterns has yielded good results. My frustration level is way down, not only because I beat my head against problems less, but because I get results! Second, the results become springboards for further progress. One example of this is an insight I had regarding loneliness.<br /><br />I've isolated myself for many years, and I tend to lump the angst from that under the single heading of "loneliness." But demanding less of myself, and especially of others, has let me see things differently. I had a brainstorm the other day that the cure for loneliness was to help other lonely people. This is a simple idea, not at all novel, but one that had immediate utility for me. In the past, I would have spun dreams around how to do this simple thing. I'd keep that up until rat hole diving or unwillingness to compromise, or some other roadblock stopped me. But this time, I started thinking in a more practical way. In order to help someone with loneliness, I needed to think about loneliness actually meant to me. I discovered that, in my case, it has at least four components. I decided that I am<br /><ol><li>Lonely. I narrowed this term down to lacking human contact.</li><li>Bored. Relying solely on my own resources for stimulation and entertainment has strict limits.<br /></li><li>Lovelorn. I haven't had a loving relationship for 13 years</li><li>Sex starved. I haven't had a good hug and kiss, let alone any sex in the same length of time.</li></ol>Taken altogether, with an obsessive focus on myself, these three components merge into a big, impenetrable ball of wax. But since I was thinking of them in the context of helping someone else, I could view them separately, and somewhat more dispassionately. This led to the immediate realization that number 1 isn't actually a problem for me! I talk to friends on a daily basis, on the phone, via SL or Facebook. That my contacts aren't face to face doesn't actually matter from the standpoint of loneliness. This also helps a lot with boredom, though I could always use more interesting things to do. So thinking about how to help other lonely people led me to an immediate cure of my own loneliness, via the realization that I was a lot less lonely than I thought.<br /><br />Regarding the last two, I got some clarity on the commonplace notion that sex and love aren't the same thing. They are separate problems that I insist on treating as one. It's possible to solve one without the other, though they can work together. I think my monolithic thinking has been a roadblock. I want fall in love with anyone I have sex with. A woman interested in one or the other might be put off by my presenting an insistence on both. Also, my long self imposed deprivation leads me to put a huge spin on that ball when meeting women. Third, isolation does make it harder to make either sort of contact. I haven't solved these problems, but I feel I've made some progress in my thinking about them.<br /><br />I always liked the old AA slogan "progress, not perfection," because it was so apt for me. I'm not satisfied with my current situation regarding any of these problems. The big difference is that I'm not getting sidetracked or stopped by my thinking about them. I'm making real progress.Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-78052504571216393032010-04-06T10:00:00.000-07:002010-04-06T10:35:18.816-07:00More MortalityI am working through grief over my situation. I looked up the five stages of grief just now, and I'm puzzled. I seem to have gone right to the depression stage, skipping over denial, anger and bargaining. It's tricky for me because I'm chronically depressed anyway. But I think I can rationalize skipping the first three steps.<br /><br />Denial: I have had a morbid imagination from my early days. It has gotten to be more of a problem later in my life. The point is I'm all too willing to believe that catastrophe awaits me in the near future. Now I have a solid basis for that worry, I'm not surprised that I believed the threat immediately.<br /><br />Anger: I've had problems with anger in the past. Anger at my ex-wife, my family, my friends. One of the reasons I have isolated myself is to avoid hurting myself and others with my anger. So my reflex is to suppress angry feelings. Lately, I've lost the luxury of getting angry: it makes me very ill. Also, the question arises: who should I be angry at? On the other hand maybe that's where the denial comes in. I'm not denying my mortality risk, but maybe I am denying my anger at the situation.<br /><br />Bargaining: with who? I have seen miracles, but they have been of the nature of unexpected and unaccountable kindness and forgiveness. I think these could have a naturalistic explanation without diminishing their significance. I'm agnostic in my religious beliefs. I'm dubious about appealing to a supernatural entity for deliverance from the common fate of mankind, even if I think it's coming too soon in my case.<br /><br />What really bothers me is the idea that I will die without love. That gets me weeping every time I think about it. I don't know how to escape that fate. I haven't had a good hug in 13 years and I feel very, very sorry for myself about it. Aside from gradually losing my capacity to have sex, I feel like I'm losing the stamina to reach out to others. That makes it hard to move on to acceptance.<br /><br />I don't know, maybe I'll pull a Dylan Thomas at the end. (The rage part, not the drunken death in a gutter.)Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-73353064189881633392010-04-06T00:32:00.000-07:002010-04-06T10:51:05.400-07:00MortalityMy congestive heart failure diagnoses is pretty serious. My doctor tells me I have even odds at being alive after two years. It's 25% mortality chance for the coming 12 months, 50% for years one and two together, I can't make this work out with basic random probability, so I assume the numbers are based on empirical measurement. I didn't ask about years following. He also mentioned that he has never personally referred a patient for heart transplant surgery. I asked if that could offer me some hope, and he shrugged. He said they wouldn't put me on the list now because I was too healthy. He also said I was between three and four on the four level scale of cardiac disability, with one being normal and four being unable to leave bed. I suppose I have to be all the way into four to be considered for a heart transplant. Some good news in the mix it would seem. He said there are two ways I could die from this. First, ventricular fibrillation could kill me. I'm protected with the defibrillator, but he said the heart might not respond. The device would shock me 10 times or so before the battery went out, then pffft. The other, more likely way would be simply by progression of the CHF. That would involve drowning essentially. I've felt fluid rising in my lungs, so I have a glimmer of what that would be like.<br /><br />So that stuff has me spinning pretty good. I have been terrified of dying ever since my heart attack, often to the point of morbid obsession. It's a hard slog keeping my mind out of obsessive pathways that have me imagining death from some absurd cause, happening next week sometime. When my depression is bad, I find it impossible to break free of those thoughts. I do better when I'm not depressed, which has been the case for 6 weeks now. Now that I have a concrete threat to my life to consider, I'm not sure how it will play out during the next downturn in my mood.<br /><br />In some ways, the prognosis takes pressure off me. I can stop worrying as much about small stuff. It even seems like I've found a pool of courage to face some problems that have plagued me most of my life.<br /><br />I'm lonely. I haven't had a lover in 13 years, since my divorce. I don't have anyone I feel comfortable enough to talk about this stuff with. I find it hard to feel love from my friends. It's possible that's the major problem right there. That, and the belief that love will always go away. I think I can't do it, or that I don't deserve it. It's easier for me to see what bullshit that all is now. But I'm still isolated in my apartment. I don't know where to go to change my luck. I need so much to have a woman's arms around me, a woman's open heart and practical mind.<br /><br />I'm working on music, and that gives me some joy and satisfaction. But I get no feedback on it. I want approval but I'd settle for criticism. What I have is a big hole. My friends don't seem interested by and large. I post things on Facebook and watch my web server logs. Nothing.<br /><br />If my insurance will pay, I'll be going to cardiac rehab next week. Perhaps that will give me a chance to make new friends. I can always flirt with the nurses. (I love nurses. :)Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-66572531619172766822010-04-01T10:43:00.000-07:002010-04-01T10:50:56.868-07:00Google ConfusionAn <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1539708e-3cf4-11df-bbcf-00144feabdc0.html">article in the Financial Times</a> reports on Google's confused response to China blocking its Chinese search engine. The article claims that ".. Google is struggling to understand what is going on." That's an interesting story, but the article goes on to list criticism of Google in a rather confused way.<br /><br />FT quotes several observers in China to the effect that Google bit off more than it could chew in confronting Beijing. A "founder of a social networking services website" says that “Google has met its match in the Chinese government.” One competitor is quoted as saying that "Google’s move smacks of hubris."<br /><br />The article goes on to quote "a US security expert" as saying that Google shouldn't have linked the censorship and cyber attack issues. The source complains that "we may not like the fact that China censors, but they are not going to discuss that with us," and "if we want to fight hacking, we need to talk about hacking and hacking only.” This sounds like an opinion from the US State Department, and makes perfect sense from that point of view.<br /><br />The confusion arises from not considering Google's history on this matter. It has been widely reported that Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google who was born in the Soviet Union, was initially opposed to Google's entry to the Chinese market because of objections to censorship. We also hear that this argument wasn't enough to carry the day back in 2006, and that Mr Brin went along with the move under the premise that Google could provide more information to Chinese users, and that was better than less information. (That sounds like a rationalization papering over conviction to me. I recognize that sort of thinking from the compromises I made working in the corporate world.) Finally, Mr Brin is quoted as saying that the cyber attacks were ".. the straw that broke the camel's back." (You can google all of this, so I won't provide references. The last one appears in the referenced article however.)<br /><br />Mulling that over, and reading the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704266504575141064259998090.html">article in the WSJ</a> about the decision making around Google's policy change toward China, it's clear that the attacks gave Mr. Brin and others within Google the leverage to change a policy they were unhappy with for many reasons, but importantly, on moral grounds.<br /><br />So that was the link between the censorship and cyber attack issues. From a US foreign policy perspective the linkage is not helpful, and not only for the reasons stated in the FT article. The consequences of Google pushing an issue that Beijing isn't going to listen to may include losing their Chinese business, but the decision is unlikely to lead to war. Governments must be more circumspect.<br /><br />From a business perspective, the decision is puzzling because it cuts against Google's long term business interests. Business analysts and investment advisers just don't buy the story that Google did this to uphold the principle of an unfettered Internet. They are free to buy whatever they want, in a rational self interested way no doubt, but they are wrong. And pardon me, but the "hubris" criticism smacks of ingratiating Chinese authorities. The slam comes from a company that, along with practically every other business from nominally free countries, fully intends to cooperate in painting black ink over Internet sites that annoy an authoritarian Chinese regime. There's also the fact that short term, this move isn't going to have much of an impact on Google's bottom line, the China business wasn't yielding a lot of profit.<br /><br />Summing up, I think Google isn't confused about China. They may be foolish for putting principle first, but they have my admiration for the decision.Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-45302585166765703482010-03-13T09:58:00.000-08:002010-03-13T10:19:05.326-08:00Oh Nooooo!<br/><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">From: dhs@hsin.gov<br />To: ME<br />Date: Sat, Mar 13 at 7:26 AM<br /></span><span class="gI"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject: the official instructions<br /><br /></span>U.S. Department of Homeland Security<br />INTELLIGENCE BULLETIN<br />UNCLASSIFIED<br /><br />13 March 2010<br /><br />Yesterday the Department of Homeland Security has received<br />the prevention from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory about<br />the occurred shift of Earth's figure axis:<br />______________________<br /><br />The recent Chilean earthquake shifted the axis by<br />approximately three inches and shortened the length<br />of a day by 1.26 microseconds. According to NASA's Jet<br />Propulsion Laboratory the displacement of Earth's axis<br />will cause natural disasters on the Eastern coast of<br />the USA including Florida, Georgia, South and North<br />Carolina.<br />______________________<br /><br />In this connection the DHS has made a decision to prepare for<br />general evacuation from the specified area. The population of<br />the region should be ready for evacuation. It is necessary<br />collect valuable possessions, documents, things of first<br />necessity, and wait for the announcement.<br /><br />In order to prevent panic among the population DHS asks to<br />stay calm and follow the official instructions listed below:</blockquote><br /><br />(Links to sites that tell you what to do with your valuable possessions omitted.)Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-20956086549802228782010-02-16T19:31:00.000-08:002010-02-16T21:16:26.152-08:00Security, Stability and Microsoft<span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">After 10 years of being serious about security, why does Windows still suck? </span><br /></span><br />On January 12, 2010, Google announced via a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html">blog posting</a> that it had been the victim of a targeted, large scale, serious and successful set of Internet based attacks. The same blog posting also revealed that similar attacks had been successfully carried out against "at least 20" other companies. Underlying the "Aurora" attacks was a vulnerability in Internet Explorer that allowed remote code execution. The hole, <a href="http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2010-0249">CVE-2010-0249</a> had <a href="http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/6797/microsoft-were-aware-of-aurora-security-flaws-/">apparently been known to Microsoft for five months </a>before the Aurora attacks were made public. Microsoft released <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/979352.mspx">security advisory 979352</a> to address the vulnerability two days later, on January 14th. Why did this problem go so long without being addressed by Microsoft? Why is Windows still vulnerable to these sorts of problems after 15 years of a commercialized Internet?<br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">No Dummies</span></span><br /><br />I doubt Microsoft is holding back creating the most secure and stable operating system on Earth because they are too dumb to know what that would look like. Microsoft hires brilliant engineers. I think they would deliver on security and stability if they could. But I think those folks are hampered in building a better quality OS for two main reasons.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Legacy</span><br /><br />First, there's still a mile high rotting pile of stinking fish and compost bearing down on those engineers. This is the legacy of an earlier Microsoft that didn't understand that a network was more than a way to print and share files. The rot pile was thickened by a long series of marketing decisions that ignored stability and security in favor of short term market advantage. (In other words, they may have gotten a clue about networks and security, but management didn't care.) Since about 2000, Microsoft has been trying to undo the damage their first two decades wrought on the pockmarked face of the PC industry. They have had mixed success. Knocking DOS on the head helped. They also released a series of increasingly stable versions of NT with Win2K and XP plus service packs. But we all know how successful those were in the face of a rising tide of cybercrime, espionage and hooliganism through the first decade of the 21st century. Important advances were made with Windows Vista, but the disaster that occurred with that OS was partly due to those very changes, underscoring the difficulties Microsoft still faces trying to overcome its legacy. Windows 7 is a better try, but has still has problems. It is still a (growing) piece of the biggest virus target in the universe. And it it is still a relatively soft target too. The applications running on top of Windows frequently fall victim, even if the core OS doesn't. In the Aurora case, the hole was in multiple versions of Internet Explorer, including IE8 on Windows 7.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Too Much Success</span></span><br /><br />So that's the legacy problem. The second big issue is that trying to appease thousands of interest groups around Windows is very, very hard. Hardware and (especially) software vendors deliver solutions that vary in quality to an absurd degree. Windows, the biggest software market on Earth, welcomes this menagerie. Architectural improvements in development technologies like .net and the CLR help some, but they are no panacea. Another challenge for Microsoft is the relatively open Wintel hardware platform. Wintel isn't open in the sense that open source software is, but it's accessible to most companies wanting to design hardware to fit in, so many do just that. But drivers for the hundreds of thousands of hardware offerings for Wintel are an important source of Windows insecurity and (especially) instability. Altogether, these partners make demands on Microsoft that are no doubt hard to reconcile. But the real problem is that making changes to the OS, such as patches to security holes, is very, very, very hard. Can you imagine the testing nightmare that Microsoft must face when confronted with a tricky security hole? But that still doesn't excuse the more egregious examples of neglect, such as the Aurora fiasco.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Other Platforms</span></span><br /><br />Other operating systems exist for PCs. They are in the minority, and so enjoy less intense scrutiny from the low-life scum that write malware and crack systems. But that's not the only advantage these alternatives have. Gnu/Linux and MacOS have an easier time with all this partly because they aren't saddled with a bad legacy. MacOS also has the advantage that the hardware platform is closely coupled to the OS, reducing or eliminating an important source of instability. The Linux kernel lacks this advantage, but shares with MacOS a set of rational architectures descended from its Unix forebears, and a commitment to security and stability. The Linux kernel adds transparent development to its list of advantages over Windows. The kernel team can turn on a dime with security problems because of good architectures, and because security and stability come first for them. Gnu/Linux applications vary widely in quality in this regard, but again, the Unix derived architectures mitigate most of the problems with bad apps.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Who is Hurting?</span></span><br /><br />Microsoft faces a unique set of challenges that their current success and questionable legacy place on them. Though I often applaud people making money from imagination, after three decades of watching the clowns in Redmond, I have to say that the problems couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. But my glee at seeing the carrion crows coming home to roost on the house that Gates built is tempered by concern for the hundreds of millions of users of Microsoft software. So on balance, I wish the current group good luck in taming the hydra headed beast that is Windows.Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-63014202243826606692009-09-25T14:07:00.000-07:002009-09-27T23:06:35.414-07:00This may be old schoolHello, darling<br /><br />Have you harvested the bits you needed<br />to fill the holes in your bodymind?<br />Did you storm out, irrational and angry<br />or are the new patterns calm and cool?<br /><br />Have you been blowing in the internetworked wind<br />roiled by resonant transforms, exchanging viral codes?<br />Are you home now, disconnected<br />safe from the malware and the glory?<br /><br />Can you fill me with your data<br />lovingly yielding your substance?<br />Can I give you a piece of my mind,<br />mixing my endocrine soul<br /> with your unbound discretion?Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-13660947876029600902009-08-15T23:50:00.000-07:002009-08-15T23:53:46.914-07:00Microsoft Word: an Anger Factory<p>Originally posted on September 6th 2007<br /></p><p>This is almost unfair, though really, it isn't. It seems like Microsoft Word has received at least as much abuse as Windows itself over the years. After all, you are more or less forced to use both if you want to get work done in corporate America. A fine recipe for anger is this: force a user to put up with stupid, time wasting behavior. Then make sure, through myriad snares and traps, that there is no way to avoid said stupidities. This engenders a feeling of powerlessness, that often turns into anger. Such is the experiential and emotional path I followed about an hour ago trying to collaborate with a business partner on a document we need to present to our customer. </p><p>The document was in .doc format, of course. I'm using Windows XP on my company supplied laptop, with whatever version of Office that shipped with the platform, patched up to fairly recent vintage. Word had no trouble opening the document at first, but at some point it crashed. Thereafter it would crash on each attempt to load the benighted thing. Now, I don't necessarily hold the crash against Word. Applications crash on Linux too. Although subjectively, it seems like they crash more frequently on Windows than on Linux. They are certainly much more prone to bringing down the whole system on XP, which is an improvement in this regard over Win2K, and that OS over NT 3.51 and so on. (Vista has improved system stability quite a bit. But it is a performance pig among other things. Apps seem to crash just as much on Vista, too.) </p><p>But how was I supposed to deal with this crash? I don't have another copy of Word around my home network. I do have Open Office in several flavors. So I tunneled in to my home network (running <a href="http://nomachine.com/">NoMachine NX</a> over <a href="http://openssh.org/">SSH</a>) and ran OO writer 2.0 on the problem file. It loaded just fine., which let me at least read the thing in advance of a conference call later today. </p><p>But here is the thing that really twists my tail: there is no way re-saving the document with OO and reimporting it into Word is going to result in an acceptable copy for collaboration with my business partner. Doing a "round trip" through OO from Word <i>always</i> results in a broken .doc at the end. This is not an accident. As many are aware, (through <a href="http:///;groklaw.net">Groklaw's</a> excellent coverage of the OOXML vs ODF standardization war, among many other sources) Microsoft wields the Office document formats as a weapon to keep users dependent on Office, and therefore Windows. (Number one and number two Microsoft cash cows. Coincidence? Chyah, right.) </p><p> So here is the last roadblock to me solving this little problem for myself. I'll have to go back to my partner and work out what feature is actually crashing my copy of Word. Or perhaps a reboot of the platform will fix things, or deleting Word's temp files if I can find them. Yet another roadblock: nothing I do will be based on what is actually wrong. My attempts will all be stabs in the dark because the internals of Word are secret. Bah! </p>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-22384195018295451632009-08-15T23:46:00.000-07:002009-08-15T23:49:39.416-07:00Windows AngerOriginally posted on October 17th, 2005<br /><br /><p>After all this time, I haven't once whined about Windows in these pages. Well, that's about to change. Here's something I sent at work today. I've removed material that could identify the workplace, or my colleagues. If this ticks you off, try replacing all the blanks with random obscenities, and odds are you'll feel better about it. </p><p>Working on this document has made me exercise Word, Visio and Windows generally far more than I ever have before. This is a particular form of hell for a Unix geek. (Dante didn't know about Unix geeks or else he would have added a whole circle for us. It would be full of NT4 boxes, of course.) I have found many new ways to make Windows lock up for ten minutes, or forever. I've learned how to desperately guess which duration I'm faced with in a given situation, and to balance that guess against the certainty of a 20 minute reboot cycle, All of this under deadline pressure, of course. </p><p> Just now, I thought I had discovered a new way to make Windows stop doing my bidding. I had been cutting and pasting multiple large blocks of Word data between various versions of the ____ draft. I was on IM with R____, letting him know I had at last succeeded in uploading this version of the document. I went to paste the title of the document, into the chat window. Windows froze when I did that. I suddenly got the horrible idea that I had just pasted the entire ____ section into the chat session! </p><p>It turned out the collaboration software had Windows' undivided attention while uploading the doc to the ____, and my title appeared in the chat window directly. I hadn't pasted megabytes of data into the IM session. But it made me realize that I had never made that particular mistake in my career before, and still hadn't. I think that's due less to my skill, or even luck, than to the enormous range of possible screw-ups available to us at any given moment. </p><p>I am convinced however that Windows expands the already limitless range of such errors more than any computing environment I'm aware of. </p>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-37113095637208961012009-08-15T22:23:00.000-07:002009-08-15T22:28:47.150-07:00Old FriendsOriginally posted on August 6th, 2003<br /><br /><p><span style="line-height: 175%;font-size:larger;" ><span style="font-size:xx-large;">I</span> just had lunch with three old friends from my days working at Octel. One was a good friend and colleague with whom I had been in touch off and on via telephone, email and chat, but had not met face-to-face since 1996. </span> </p><p> He recently moved back to the Bay Area, and we decided to meet up at the Empress of India, in Santa Clara. This is a small, and very good Indian restaurant that was a frequent meeting place for the old Octel crew that I worked with. When I showed up at noon, my friend was there, and so was the boss of that old crew. She had introduced most of the shop to this restaurant, and her being there was a coincidence, made a little less amazing by the fact that she frequently has lunch there. She let slip that my first friend had invited a second old friend that I hadn't seen in many years. It turns out that he is now a V.P. of Product Management at a startup. He's a very busy guy, so he was late. My first friend and I started in on our first course. After a while, the second friend showed up. We had very pleasant conversation over the glow of truly excellent chicken curry. My ex-boss was with the party she had come with, so she didn't get involved in the conversation, but her presence made the meal seem all the more nostalgic. I felt a warm glow that was only partly due to the curry. </p> <p>With some exceptions, I've been hiding out from humanity ever since my ex-wife died in December 1999. In most things, I'm self sufficient. I do well on my own. But reconnecting with this group reminds me strongly of how much I miss human company. Electronic interactions with friends fill some of my need for this sort of thing. But sitting in an old familiar place, sharing pleasures like a good meal, and watching a friend's face as he tells a joke or lets you know about a fear isn't something that translates well over email. I enjoyed this lunch an awful lot. </p>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-55905004531258470202009-08-15T21:33:00.000-07:002009-08-15T21:36:16.903-07:00A Salute and a River BasinOriginally posted on May 23rd, 2003<span style="font-size: larger; line-height: 175%;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"><br /><br />I</span> love computer language translation. It can be so eerily inept. </span> I received some spam today with a probably virus laden attachment from "stella@email.it" The body of the message had this: <blockquote> --------------------------- * * * E N G L I S H * * * --------------------------- Watched the demonstrative preview of the scherzetto " Spiral-fantastic " then you start the application that virtually you distoglie the sight from the images common in order to deform all I have there that watched subsequently for 1-2 min. Truly fantastic, it sure deserves to make to turn the knowing friends and. You do not have fear, is only an innocent game that has but its unexpected implications. <i><b>Yeah, I'll bet! - ed.</b></i> A salute and a river basin from Stella. </blockquote>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-34431064315986468152009-08-15T21:23:00.000-07:002009-08-15T21:33:29.636-07:00Masterful BrushoffOriginally posted on May 18th, 2003<br /><br /><span style="font-size: larger; line-height: 175%;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;">I</span> received the following chain letter on a mailing list I belong to. I liked it so much, I wrote the reply that follows. Then a friend posted a reply, and I responded again. </span><br /><br /><br />Dear Mastercard, What can I say? We've been through alot together. I remember meeting you when I was only 19. You were sitting there, all discretly in the post, with those gleaming rates peeping out from your foggy envelope window. You were smitten, you told me how responsible I seemed, what a great fit we'd be, and you were willing to go all the way right away. I've never been so caught off guard, and yet so comfortable. And you treated me right. You bought me a nice new bed, and didn't mind if I saw other girls. God, I loved that space. You were so reliable, like a regular booty call. But we both know it was more, so much more. I became dependent on you. And you never let me down. You even bought meals and drinks for my other dates. Steadfastly knowing that I'd be back, usually by the end of the month. I love you MasterCard. You took me to Europe and Mexico. You took me to concerts, and bought me cds and clothes, I didn't even have to ask. Just a glance and you were there. But then you became testy, and then down right obsessed. Your notes, while seemingly charming, were unsettling. I sent my regards whenever I could, but you always wanted more. And you'd throw it back in my face. I couldn't do for you they way you did for me. Rather, you wanted more. And you never let up. Well MasterCard, I want you to know that I wrote you AGAIN today- and this was the last time. We're even now, I don't owe you a thing. And having achieved this balance, I think its best we see other people. You've been great, just not what I need or am looking for at this time. I hope you understand, I'm sure you'll be okay, but you just want too much. I can walk away, now, knowing I did you right. I'll miss you, but there just no good reason to continue. Goodbye, MasterCard. Thanks for understanding. <br /><br />Your friend, <br />Brian <br /><br />Dear Brian, Honey, how can you treat me this way? After all we've been through, you brush me off with a check and a Dear John! Despite everything, I want you to know it was NEVER about the money. (I know I said so. Please forgive me. I was upset.) You ARE the most responsible consumer I've ever known. I understand about being late. I FORGIVE you. Please don't dump me like this! I don't want to put any more pressure on you, but the bank says I'm pregnant. How am I supposed to take care of a litter of little smart as^H^Hcards without those interest payments? Please take me back. Only 9% for the first three months, Darling!<br /><br />Your Mistress<br />Mastercard<span style="font-size: larger; line-height: 175%;"><br /><br />From the comments section (ljl), Brian responds</span><br /><br />Dear Mastercard, No, darling, it's over. I've taken up with Visa, but only as a flirtation with her check card business. When you started flirting and playing with those collectors like RMA, it was over between us.<br /><br />Brian <span style="font-size: larger; line-height: 175%;"><br /><br />And a final(?) response from Mastercard<br /><br /></span>Dear Brian,<br /><br />VISA!!? That, that .. BITCH! How could you let yourself be fooled by her come-on?? Brian, she's a cheap, no-good whore. I mean it! She's been in more ATMs than a banker's got points. Besides that, her introductory rates are only good for six weeks! I give you a whole three months, baby! Listen, I can make it last longer if I try hard enough. How does six whole months of, I don't know, 8% sound? Drop that tawdry bit of plastic and come home to ME!<br /><br />It'll be .. priceless!Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-50210206694186398122009-08-15T21:17:00.000-07:002009-08-15T21:23:02.271-07:00Sounds sorta like GodOriginally posted on May 9th, 2003<span style="line-height: 175%;font-size:larger;" ><span style="font-size:xx-large;"><br /><br />A</span>dam Sohn, product manager for Microsoft's Passport group, <a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1009-1000655.html?tag=nl">quoted on C|Net's news.com</a> , commenting on whether they should have caught the trivial crack in Passport's change password process: <blockquote> "Of course we should have caught it; we should catch<br />every (issue)," he said. "That's what you are working<br />toward. We are always looking. There is not a beginning<br />or end to this kind of effort."<br /></blockquote> No end, good. No beginning, <i><b>bad</b></i>. </span>Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-1378953987208848142009-08-15T20:57:00.000-07:002009-08-15T21:17:11.848-07:00AOL AngerOriginally posted on May 4th, 2003.<br /><br /><span style="line-height: 175%;font-size:larger;" ><span style="font-size:xx-large;">I</span> have a problem with anger. Like today for example. I was looking over my bank statement and saw a charge from AOL.<br /><br /></span>Now, I signed up over four years ago, I'm ashamed to say, and I've <i>never</i> used the account. I'm even more ashamed to say that I've let those *ahem* people charge me every month for the service for all that time. Well, now I'm unemployed, and I decided to do something about it. I heard that they had a new broadband service that had all sorts of cool Time/Warner content, so the first thing I thought of was giving that a whirl before I shut down the account. I tried to remember my screen name and log in via www.aol.com. No joy. So I called the 800 number and navigated the voice mail to the forgotten password help. After listening to a long recorded explanation of how to change my password if I had my screen name and the AOL software, I got a helpful lady on the line. I explained the situation, and she was able to call up my account using my credit card number. Next she needed the address associated with the account. I told her I wasn't sure, but that I thought it was an old Oceanside address, which I gave her.<br /><br />AOL : "What about the ZIP code?"<br />Me: "I don't have that."<br />AOL:"I'm sorry, but I can't give you your screen name without the ZIP code."<br />Me:"Well, this was four years ago, and I'm lucky I remember the address"<br />AOL:"Don't you have it written down?"<br /><br />Now, I was ambivilant about using AOL anyway, and I didn't want to go digging into my records to find this information<b>.</b><br /><br />Me:'Nope. What can I do?"<br />AOL:"Well, you can cancel the account."<br />Me:"Don't they need the ZIP code?"<br />AOL:"No."<br />Me: "Does it make business sense that I can cancel my account using my credit card number, but I can't stay your customer with it?"<br />AOL:"They don't have to give out personal information in order to cancel."<br />Me:"What?"<br />AOL:"The screen name."<br />Me:"Oh, I guess that makes sense.."<br /><br />So, back to the voice mail system. I spent a short while on hold this time, enough to remember that they don't make it easy to cancel." Finally, I get connected.<br /><br />AOL:"Hi, this is Steve. How may I make your online experience even better today?"<br />Me:"Well, Steve, I'm afraid I want to cancel my online experience."<br />Steve:"Oh, that's too bad. May I ask why?'<br />Me:"Well, I haven't used it in four years."<br />Steve:"OK, then. What was the address associated with the account?"<br />Me:"Well, I've had four addresses in the last four years. I can give you the credit card number."<br /><br />So I give it to him. He repeats it back to me. Soon he says:<br /><br />Steve:"No, I can't seem to find that number."<br />Me:"Well, they could look it up at the forgotten password desk."<br />Steve:"Really? How did they do that?'<br />Me:"I don't know."<br />Steve:"Well, I can't seem to find it. What was the address on the account?" <b><br /><br /></b>An explanation of why I didn't have the ZIP code ensued. Apparently that stumped Steve, too.<br /><br />Steve:"Well, I can't help you without that information."<br />Me:"OK. Let me talk to your supervisor."<br />Steve:"The easiest thing would be to call your credit card company and have them stop paying." Me:"It's not a payment. It's a charge."<br />Steve:"What?"<br />Me:"I never authorized a payment. You charge my credit card every month."<br /><br />I didn't add that they change the expiry date every year to boot.<br /><br />Steve:"Well I don't see how that matters.."<br />Me:"It means that you have my credit card number, somewhere. Let me talk to your supervisor." Steve:"He'd just tell you the same thing. What was that number again?"<br /><br />So I let him check the number again.<br /><br />Steve:'Nope. Still can't find it. Are you sure you don't have that ZIP code?"<br />Me:"Stop stonewalling and let me talk to your supervsor."<br />Steve:"I'm not stonewalling. I'm trying to help.."<br />Me:"But you can't help. Please escalate the call."<br />Steve:"He's on the other line.."<br />Me:"I'll wait."<br />Steve:"You keep interrupting me.."<br />Me:"Because you're stonewalling. They must really come down on you if you escalate."<br />Steve:"No, as a matter of fact they don't.."<br />Me:"Then please let me talk to your supervisor!"<br />Steve:"You keep interrupting. I'm just trying to help.."<br />Me:"*gargle* *sputter* Now look, <i>you can't help me!</i> You've tried, and you can't do it. Please just accept that and let me talk to your supervisor!<br />Steve:"What was that number again? I may have mistyped it."<br />Me:"I DON"T WANT YOU TO TRY AGAIN!! I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR FUCKING SUPERVISOR!!"<br />Steve:"I don't need to listen to that sort of language."<br />Me:"Ahhh. You were waiting for that! Any excuse to shunt the call into the bit bucket." <b><br /></b><br />I neglected to mention that I'm a bit paranoid, too.<br /><br />Steve:"No, I'm trying to help..<br />Me: "Gaaahhh.. What was your first name again?"<br />Steve:"My name is Steve."<br />Me:"Now look, Steve. <i>you can't help me!</i> You've looked up the number twice..<br />Steve:"Three times."<br />Me:".. three times. And you aren't getting a different result. So PLEASE LET ME TALK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR!"<br />Steve:"I wish you wouldn't shout. <b><br /><br /></b>Ten more minutes of simliar dialog ensued before his supervisor got on the line. (After a short time on hold).<br /><br />Supe:"Hi, this is ___ how may I make your online experience even better today?"<br />Me:"I want to cancel."<br />Supe:"Yess, and I see you've been dealing with my best rep, Steve.."<br />Me:"Yes, and he's been stonewalling.."<br />Supe:"..and I see you haven't been using your account for the past four.. er.. three months. That's all the further back I can look."<br /><br />His disingenuous smile slid slimely out my cell phone.<br /><br />Me:"So, you've got my account up!"<br />Supe:"Yes.."<br />Me:"And Steve couldn't bring it up.."<br />Supe:"Yes, he was correct in telling you he couldn't.."<br />Me:"I want to complain.."<br />Supe:"Please stop interrupting me! He was correct in telling you he couldn't look up your account. I used some higher access codes to retrive you information."<br />Me:"I want to complain.."<br />Supe:"Now if you could just tell me why you want to leave AOL.."<br />Me:"I WANT TO COMPLAIN! ARE YOU READY TO LISTEN??"<br />Supe: ...<br />Me:"Hello?"<br />Supe:"Yes."<br />Me:"I have been trying for twenty minutes to get Steve to escalate the call to you."<br />Supe:"He was correct in.."<br />Me"Stop! LISTEN!"<br />Supe: ...<br />Me:"He couldn't access my account information"<br />Supe:"Yes.."<br />Me:"The moment we determined that I asked that he escalate the call. He stonewalled for fifteen minutes. You get on the line and fix the problem in under three minutes."<br />Supe:"He doesn't have access to.."<br />Me:"Graggggh!"<br /><br />I finally got him to sit still and listen to why I was pissed off. I then sat through a set of questions intended to figure out why I was leaving. I told him (truthfully, and with relish,) that I was leaving because the change password desk couldn't give me my screen name. I also told him (less truthfully, but with more relish) that I would <i>never</i> consider coming back because of the way I had been treated just now. This was not true because the real reason is that they suck. He then offered to give me three months .. pause .. of free AOL for the trouble I'd been through. (I know for a fact that he could have offerred me a three month refund.) I said "No! I want you guys off my credit card bill!"<br /><br /><span style="font-size: larger; line-height: 175%;"><span style="font-size: xx-large;"></span></span>My anger seems to flare in proportion to the amount of my own stupidity that got me into the situation. This is not a new insight for me. But reading between the lines of the AOL agents's statements, I get the impression that <i>that's what they were doing too.</i> This could just be me projecting my own thoughts onto others, but maybe not. The supervisor clung to his defense of his "best rep" far longer than would be wise from a customer service perspective. Of course, these two didn't seem like really bright bulbs anyway.<br /><br />Well, I am now an ex-AOL customer. I feel so.. drained!Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-63015466462262787072009-08-15T20:53:00.000-07:002009-08-15T20:57:02.153-07:00And now for a breakIt's time for a break from the blow by blow description of my health problems. I just dug out the mysql database I used with my old blog, Anger Management. I'm going to post several of those old entries here. Since Google vows to store things forever, My wit and wisdom should then be available to scholars and humor critics many centuries hence, and without using the wayback machine.Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7559523763620405941.post-86241613759316454732009-08-12T23:51:00.000-07:002009-08-12T23:55:12.514-07:00WednesdayI started the day by nearly fainting after breakfast. It was a 40 minute long dizzy spell featuring black spots before my eyes if I stood up. The nurse threatened to call 911, but I put her off. I gradually felt better and went upstairs with a staff member at my elbow. In my room, I took my blood pressure - ERROR - the meter wouldn't read it. Wait a minute, repeat - 85/64. I'm sure it was much lower when the spell was really underway. After I got to where I could think, I remembered my blood pressure meds. I'm supposed to take 2.5 mg a day of the Lisonipril. But I have 10mg pills, and I never got the right ones. So I try to quarter the stupid triangle shaped pill with variable results. I think the variation was on the "too much" side last night. I called my cardiac doc today and asked her to fax a prescription to the local pharmacy for the right amount. I don't know if she's done it, so I made sure I took less than a quarter pill tonight. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.<br /><br />I visited my new psychiatrist today. He's an older fellow with an old dog planted on the couch. So the cliche of the Freudian analyst talking to the couch bound patient won't work in his case. He listened to my extensive psychological and medical history, scribbling notes rather frantically I thought. He seems like a nice guy who doesn't patronize. That's a rare and precious quality in a shrink.<br /><br />I also went and had my blood thinning tested. Around 5PM I got a call from the coumedin nurse at my doctor's saying that she wanted me to stay on lovenox and increase the coumedin dose. Since the latter is managed by Atria, I handed her off to the local nurse. This worthy was insisting on a faxed order for the dose change, which I guess they worked out. I never did find out what my INR (thinning index) was, which is annoying. I like to know things like that. It seems to me the coumedin nurse wants me to discontinue the lovenox two days hence without testing, assuming that the higher coumedin dose will kick me into therapeutic range by then. I'm not comfortable with that. She specializes in getting people into the right coumedin dose, of course. So she's probably right about how long it will take in this case. But as long as I'm at increased stroke risk, I'm going to insist on whatever it takes to keep me anticoagulated. I'll call her tomorrow and discuss this with her.<br /><br />At lunch and dinner, I spoke with Dick, the guy with liver cancer. He has been desperate for someone to talk to. He keeps telling me how relieved he is to have me around. I'm glad to help. He's a nice guy. I'm a little worried about being his only lifeline though. I'm also facing a choice of whether to befriend a dying man, with all the sadness and perhaps horror that could entail. There's actually no question that I'll jump right in, but the morbid thoughts do occur to me. On the plus side, he has two nice looking daughters. :)<br /><br />I tried going to the see the movie tonight. It was "Labor Pains," which was a chick film par excellence. Call me dense, but I didn't get that from the title. It was mildly funny, but the subject matter didn't speak to me. I left with apologies after 15 minutes.<br /><br />Tomorrow I start the outpatient program. I'm a bit nervous, but I'm sure it will work out OK.Howard Owenhttps://plus.google.com/107494228716101147163noreply@blogger.com0